The most important visitor to Crete will arrive in May, she’s already on her way.

Her name is “Caretta Caretta“, she has become entwined in our lives in such a way as we could never have imagined.

May is always an exciting time for Mr J and I. As part of a volunteer group we begin the daily 4 kms beach patrols in search of the endangered Loggerhead Turtles nest. Our duties are shared and continue until the end of October, by when the last little hatchling has got to the sea.

Remembering our first nest patrol back in 2010, up at 5am, on the beach at 6am, camera at the ready for what we hoped would be our first discovery of a turtles nest. And there she was in all her glory, the morning sun, rising up above the Mediterranean, forgotten in all the excitement.

The sight of the sunrise was just one of the many joys we were about to experience during our first season as volunteers for the Greek Sea Turtle Protection Society “Archelon”

Archelon has been protecting turtles in Crete since 1989, having first been established in 1977 after discovering that many Loggerhead Turtles nested along the beaches of Zakynthos, by 1989 research had shown that Crete was also a popular nesting area, particularly along the North Coast, and so the task began to provide as secure an environment as possible for the turtles of Crete.